IPS 3501 

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1914 
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COFVRIGHT DEPOSIT 



POEMS 



POEMS 



BY 



WALTER CONRAD ARENSBERG 




BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 

1914 



Tt)3rot 



•^^t^lA- 



COPYRIGHT, I914, BY WALTER CONRAD ARENSBERG 
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 

Published April 1Q14 



APR 15 1914 



A^ 



(DCI,A371367 



TO MY MOTHER 



CONTENTS 

To One who Reads i 

In Memory of F. C. G. 3 

A Vow 6 

To Little M. A. on her Birthday .... 8 

Jardin du Luxembourg 12 

Avenue de l'Opera 13 

On the Train 15 

The Moons of All Time 16 

A Fountain at Frascati 17 

Serenade 18 

Night 19 

Among the Fields .21 

To A Skylark in the Campagna ..... 23 

A Poppy 25 

Eclogue 27 

Expectancy 29 

A Ballade to my Lady Moonlight . . . .30 

Until To-morrow 32 

Romanticism 33 

r vii 1 



A Prayer 35 

Dream-Tryst 36 

Above the Sea 37 

Night Song 39 

Interior 40 

The Return 42 

Venus of Melos 43 

Autumn Wind 44 

Quest 45 

Confidences 47 

My Lady's Tomb 48 

Weariness 49 

For a Picture by Leonardo da Vinci ... 50 

Slumber Song 52 

Chryseis . . 53 

The Wild Rose 55 

During Music 56 

Seaward • . . .58 

Nocturne 59 

The Grave 60 

Sonnets 

Time's Losses I 61 

Time's Losses II .62 

On a Macedonian Tomb .- 63 

The End of the Story . . . , . .64 

[ viii ] 



At Parting . . . . . ' , . . .65 

The Sleeping Beauty 66 

"Music to Hear" . . . ■ . . . .67 

For a Picture of a Saint 68 

To One whose Love was Service .... 69 

A Face 70 

The Pieta of Michel Angelo ... . . .71 

Atalanta 72 

In the Home of Life 73 

When I am Old 74 

The Nightingales 75 

Quatrains 

The Poet - , . 76 

The Masterpiece 77 

Youth 78 

Time in a Garden . . , . . . \ , . 79 

The Rhone at Avignon .80 

On a Certain Irregularity . .'..'. 81 
To A Deserted Litter of Puppies .... 82 
To A Goaded Sheep . . . ..,.'. 83 
A Franciscan . . . . . . . .84 

Tribute . . ' 85 

Out of Doors . ' 86 

About an Allegory 87 

Tristan and Iseult of the White Hands ... 88 

[ i^ 1 



TRANSLATIONS 

Sonnet. From Rons ard . . . . . . • 95 

Sonnet. From Du Bellay . . . . . .96 

Upon a Dead Woman. From De Musset . ~ . .97 
Meditation. From Baudelaire . ■ . . . .99 

Complaint of Lord Pierrot. From Jules Laf argue . 100 

Conceits. From Jules Laf argue 102 

Sea Wind. From Mallarme 104 

What Silk in Scents. From Mallarme . . . .105 

Musette. From Murger 106 

After Three Years. From Verlaine . , . .109 
Nevermore. From Verlaine . . . . . .110 

My Familiar Dream. From Verlaine . . . ,111 

Languor. From Verlaine 112 

Oh Heavy, Heavy was my Mind. From Verlaine , . 113 

Cydalises. From Gerard de Nerval 115 

Delphica. From Gerard de Nerval 1 16 

Mignon's Song. From Goethe 117 

Song. From Heine .119 

To Zante. From Ugo Foscolo 120 

On the Death of a Brother. From Ugo Foscolo ■■ , 121 



POEMS 



POEMS 

TO ONE WHO READS 

What is it, that with all thy tears 

Thou weep'st that loss of Guinevere's, 

When she who lay with Lancelot 

Lies now with Death and knows it not ? 

What is it that for Helen won 

Away from withered Ilion 

Thou weep'st when thirty centuries 

Have taken her love and given peace ? 

What is it when on windy wings 

Into thine eyes Francesca brings. 

As to her Ark from Dante's book. 

Dove-like, so faint, so far a look ? 

What is it ? Ah, it is the thing. 

Yea, this alone, for which did sing 

The poet who for Beatrice 

In death could do no more than this : 

[ ^ ] 



To make thee weep and so let live 
The spirits who are fugitive 
From the old life eternally 
A while within the heart of thee. 



[ 2 ] 



IN MEMORY OF F. C. G. 

Eager and unaware 
Of the obscure descent, 
Singing a song he went 
Down the long lonely stair 

That builds upon the sands 
Whence no man's eyes divine 
The void of the sea-line 
Broken by other lands. 

The songs he used to sing, 
First heard them he alone 
As some sad undertone 
Of daylight darkening. 

As some unquiet breath 
Of life that swept among 
The fragile rushes sprung 
In sudden waves of death. 

[ 3 ] 



Passionate little tunes, 
That bore on changing streams 
The sailing of his dreams, 
Under the suns and moons 

Of all his human moods, 
Still in your silver flow 
His visions come and go. 
And his brief passion broods. 

So soon his years went by. 
He sang, and ceased to sing. 
The while his years were spring. 
He had no time to die — 

No time upon the quest 
Of all the fervor furled 
In the unopened world. 
No time, no time for rest. 

He sought the shapes of sense 
As seeks the worshipper 
Mystically the myrrh 
And holy frankincense, 

[ 4 ] 



For forms that wing the air 
Toward the diviner things, 
And lift upon their wings 
A voice of burning prayer. 

Wherefore a long regret, 
However he be blest 
In the far fields of rest. 
Will hunt and haunt him yet, 

His mutilated day, 
And the malign caprice 
That bade his being cease 
Midway upon the way. 

Ere in one wide control 
Of mood and intellect 
He well might reerect 
His world a perfect whole. 

Ere in the crucible 
Of passion he might fuse. 
Pure for his spirit's use, 
The world that he loved well. 
[ 5 ] 



A VOW 

All the night till day be born 
Like a flower upon a thorn, 
Like a moon upon a lake, 
Like the eyes that you awake, 
I will watch for your sweet sake ! 

All the day till night shall rise 
Like a blindness on the skies. 
Like the ice upon the brook. 
Like a death in some sad book. 
Like Leander's drowning look, 

I will hide you in a hollow 
Where the years alone may follow; 
In the heart of such a land 
That the seas shall have to stand 
At the circle of its strand ; 

[ 6 ] 



In the inner heart of me 
I will keep you utterly ; 
Kinder than the love of brothers, 
Kinder, crueller than a mother's. 
In a love that brooks no others ! 

There shall need no other face 
For the flowering of that place. 
There shall need no other glass 
For the sands of time to pass, 
There shall be but one Alas, — 

Be it only that you stay 
All the night and all the day, 
Be it only that you cling 
Closer till you lift a wing 
For the final fluttering. 



[ 7 ] 



TO LITTLE M. A. ON HER BIRTHDAY 

Baby born 
On a morn, 

With a weeping 
And a sleeping 

First you tested 
Life, and rested. 

So the trial 
Broke the vial 

Where the years 
Keep their tears ! 

And you learn 
Where to turn — 

Life is best 
On a breast ! 
[ 8 ] 



Just the blossom 
Of a bosom, 

Just the mouth 
Of a drouth, 

Just the I 
Of a cry, 

Little baby, 
Not a May-be 

Or a Never 
In Forever 

Lights your way 
From to-day ! 

Not a suture 
Knits the future 

To a past 
All unglassed 

[ 9 ] 



In the skies 
Of your eyes! 

Thoughtless brow, 
Is the Now, 

Is the Real 
Your Ideal — 

Just to be 
Momently ? 

Or have you 
Something new 

Still to fashion 
Out of passion ? . 

From a mother's 
To another's 

Bosom laid. 
Unafraid, 

[ ^o ] 



Will you give 
Leave to live, 

Ere you go — 
From the throe 

Out of breath — 
Back to death ? 



[ " ] 



JARDIN DU LUXEMBOURG 

Winter wind in autumn blows ; 
Autumn days are grown too chilly 
For Godivas of the rose 
Or the raiment of the lily. 

Rouged — and not so very well — 
Come the dahlias now to harden 
All the soft and true pastel 
Of the once ungathered garden. 

Even the nursery maids have flown 
From the hurricane that drenches 
Gods and goddesses in stone 
And the God-forsaken benches. 

Like cocottes along the grass, 
Dauntlessly the dahlias hearken 
For the steps that never pass 
While the hours of daytime darken. 

[ «2 ] 



AVENUE DE L'OPERA 

Watch her experimental blufF 

Of letting drop her ermine muff — 

Chemically, because she waits 

For masculine precipitates ; 

Incredulous and credulous 

That she should get ihe drop on us, 

Apologetic for the ruse. 

As though she might be thought to use 

A trick too easy to be fair, 

Like magic or a mere Lord's Prayer ! 

But really, now, she is too sweet 

To flower upon the trodden street. 

Too full of honey and too frail 

To flaunt at the deflowering male. 

Too full of faith in what her sense 

Knows better than experience. 

Yes, too cocksure, and still too chaste 

To dream of any aftertaste 

[ »3 ] 



Of apples that are grown for food, 

Of fruit God grew and saw was good. 

She lacks, I think, the brains to be 

Accomplice of her Destiny ; 

And if she has the luck to find 

A fellow who is not unkind. 

She '11 have a laugh ... so never mind ! 



[ H ] 



ON THE TRAIN 

O GLAD release into the sea-deep night! 
O swift and sure extinction of the light 
Of Paris waning to a starry dust 
Of lamps that lubricate its life and lust, 
Of lamps that look at what the walls exhume 
Of the still starved cadavers of a tomb 
That grudges even the grace unto its dead 
To let them rot without the need of bread ! 

The light is out. O sad, O hopeless flight 

Into the dim, illimitable night, 

Into the shadowy hollow of the world ! 

Fatally and impenetrably furled 

In Paris and the Past, the flowers of days 

Are now all trodden on those darkened ways, 

The flowers that once were scattered in the street 

To pave it, ah, for what escaped feet ! 



[ »5 ] 



THE MOONS OF ALL TIME 

Where are the moons that in all olden night 
Have bloomed along the shoreland of the sky, 
Stately as lilies, single, still, and white, 
Unhastening to open and to die ? 

Where are the moons upon what aimless flight, 
That from their garden while the wind is high 
Another breaks and bubbles toward the height. 
Blown loose among the stars that wander by ? 



[ i6 ] 



A FOUNTAIN AT FRASCATI 

The drooping of the fountain to its pool, 
A silver willow weeping in the night, 
Is like a wraith that haunts for lost delight 
The mirror that it once made beautiful. 

I hear the dropping moments in the spray . . 
The stealthy hours desert the solitude. 
Wherein is waiting, waiting to be wooed. 
The wraith of hushed love that passed away. 



[ »7 ] 



SERENADE 

Be still, be still — you have dreamed awhile. 
The moon and the stars are not for you, 
And on the face is not the smile 
That you are whispering to. 

The world is waiting at your eyes. 
You sleep too long, awake, awake ! 
You have been happy — now be wise. 
And watch the bubbles break ! 



[ i8 ] 



NIGHT 

From utter dark to utter 
Dark on the wing, 
The stars are all a-flutter 
With westering ! 

What wakens out of heaven, 
What farther peace, 
Arcturus and the seven 
Pale Pleiades ? 

And slips the moon her mooring 
From out the bay . . . 
What in the world is luring 
The moon away ? 

Horizon past horizon, 
Is there a quest ? 
What is the road it lies on, 
West beyond west ? 

[ 19 ] 



Hollow above the hollow 
Of star-far dome, 
What way is there to follow 
Home ? 



AMONG THE FIELDS 

Ere the day darken, dear, 
Ere the day die. 
Bow down and hearken, dear, 
Out of the sky. 

Lonely I wander, dear, 
Under the sun. 
Wilt thou be yonder, dear. 
When days are done ? 

Out of the grave of thee 
Up through His portal, 
What did God save of thee 
For the immortal ? "■ 

What hath He made of thee, 
More to be blest ? 
What of the braid of thee. 
What of the breast ? 

[ ^» ] 



Oh, when I come to thee 
With the old word, 
Will it be dumb to thee 
Then, or be heard ? 

Thou who did' St evenly 
Share in the old, 
Will it be heavenly 
Then to withhold ? 

Spirit who bore to me 
Love of a woman. 
Be as of yore to me 
Heavenly human ! 



TO A SKYLARK IN THE CAMPAGNA 

Thou art so far, 

Bird of the singing wings 

Or singing star, 

That by thy lightenings 

Of song alone 

I trace thy sunny track 

To the Unknown, 

And I would call thee back ! 

Come unto me, 

And I will build a nest 

Of memory. 

And I will give thee rest. 

Yea, though thou roam 
Deathward with all the world. 
My heart 's a home 
Where wings will not be furled, 

[ 23 ] 



A home my heart 

Where memory shall shrine 

The deathless part 

Of this mad flight of thine ! 

But from my call 
To thee who art so far, 
Bird that let'st fall 
Star after falling star 

Of voice afire, 
Still on the flight begun 
Thou mountest higher. 
Up to the endless sun ! 



C 24 ] 



A POPPY 

Flame of the swooned heat 
Of sun-blazed air, 
Now burning in her wheat 
Of golden hair, 

O poppy with thy fruit 
Of dream and doom, 
Plucked for thy passionate mute 
Appeal of bloom, 

Has she the power to reckon 
Toward what wild ways 
She lifted thee to beckon 
Above her face ? 

Or is it for the red 
Of just a flower 
She crowns upon her head 
Seductive power? 

[ ^5 ] 



Out of her virgin trance 
Thy blood-red call 
And languid petulance 
Are bacchanal ! 



[ ^6 ] 



ECLOGUE 

Within the woodland secrecies 
Of languorous glades that meekly lie 
Released from the embracing trees, 
Uncovered underneath the sky, 

While I was all alone and heard. 
Faint as an echo when it dies, 
The melancholy cuckoo bird 
Keep calling for her own replies. 

In dream I saw Neaera there. 
Lying asleep among the grapes, 
Her face deep nested in her hair . .^ , 
And all the while a satyr gapes ! 

With eyes that are too timid sad 
And open lips that meditate 
The pastures of her breast unclad. 
He hears his heart — until, too late ! 

[ -7 ] 



She has drained out her summer sleep, 
Her sunshine languor melts away, 
And ere her eyes dream-heavy peep, 
He loses all his heart to stay! 

But oftener in other mood 
I wander to the wood alone. 
And in a chosen solitude 
Unto myself I make my moan 

Of dreams that never come to flower. 
And of those flowers that are forlorn, 
Like morning-glories, in the hour 
That takes away the hour of morn. 

Oh then when I have wept apart 
The flowers of dream so nearly dead, 
I am enlightened in my heart 
And delicately comforted. 

And see that the unhuman tryst 
There with the living solitude 
Is sweeter than Neaera kissed 
Within the secret of the wood. 
[ 28 ] 



EXPECTANCY 

Dream, drudge, and then the years to wait ! 
My heart is listening at its gate 
Forever for the feet of Fate. 

And while the seasons cloud and clear, 
" Is Fate far off, or is Fate near. 
Or passed ? " I ask — I cannot hear; 

Until my heart reads in the Laws : 
" In the beginning as it was, 
So shall it be without a pause ! " 

Until my heart in secret says : 
" Along the drifting level ways 
Of Time there are no different days ! " 

For lo ! without a trumpet blast. 
The mute dead march of Fate at last 
Is coming still and long is passed. 

[ 29 ] 



A BALLADE TO MY LADY MOONLIGHT 

I KNOW not how thou cam'st to rise, 

Moon of my nights, and waken me 

From slumber that was death's disguise — 

No power on earth could set me free. 

Ah, but the power was heavenly. 

The power of love in thee enshrined — 

Or if it is a lunacy. 

Beloved, do not call me blind ! 

There was no word of dim moonrise, 
No early flush of birth to be 
Along the east. I closed my eyes 
On skies as dark as the dark sea. 
The darkness was a mystery 
Wherethrough there was no way to wind, 
Till with thy light thou mad'st me see. 
Beloved, do not call me blind ! 

[ 30 ] 



Moon of my nights, on sapphire skies 
No morning star gives light like thee, 
Nor comes to birth in blossom-wise 
Out of the east on mere or lea 
So like a lily perfectly. 
The stars before thee and behind. 
When thou art shining, fade and flee. 
Beloved, do not call me blind ! 

Listen, my Moonlight, to my plea ! 
Because I have not half defined 
Thy beauties in these stanzas three, 
Beloved, do not call me blind ! 



[ 31 ] 



UNTIL TO-MORROW 

Until to-morrow or some other day, 
To-morrow's morrow far and far away, 
I wander with bewildered heart and feet. 
Lost on the hills of separation, sweet. 

Beyond the hills of separation, sweet, 
Your arms will hold me when at last we meet 
And will you whisper, then, that I may stay 
Until to-morrow or some other day ? 



[ 32 ] 



ROMANTICISM 

I WATCHED the window of the world, 
Which is myself inevitably, 
How through the window was unfurled 
The midnight that had darkened me. 

And as the bursting buds emerge 
And odorous flames of flowers are born, 
I followed on the fainting verge 
The slow emergency of morn. 

Wherefore, because all curious things. 
The warmth of flowers, the flower of flame, 
The momentariness of wings 
Weaving together the ways they came, 

The breath of lilies on still air 
That toll like censers full of myrrh, 
The weaving of a woman's hair. 
Which breathes the frankincense of her, 

[ 33 ] 



Because all curious things impress 
Me only through the sense of me, 
I strove to make for loveliness 
A sensitive transparency ; 

Till all the labor on the glass 
Brought a reflection dimly known, 
And mingled with the shapes that pass 
I see the eyes that are mine own — 

Till ever in the carelessness 
Of the untroubled world I see 
The image of mine own distress, 
The mute mirage of sympathy. 

As though the living wine of pain 
Should stir again its stagnant lees, 
And with a human sorrow stain 
The Hermes of Praxiteles. 



[ 34 ] 



A PRAYER 

Pour down the darkness of your hair 
As a veil falls over the evening skies. 
I hear the voice of an old despair 
Calling, calling out of the past, 
And there 's an echo that replies. 
Pour down the darkness of your hair 
And make a mist about my eyes ; 
— For what is there to say at last ? 



[ 35 ] 



DREAM-TRYST 

Come to me not in dream, 
For fear of the awaking ! 
■ What is the good to seem, 
To keep my heart from breaking ? 

Come to me not to-night, 
O dream without a morrow ! 
You come and you take flight 
When you have borne my sorrow. 

Come to me not at all ! 
Then is the world a hollow. 
You do not come — you call. 
You do not come — I follow ! 



[ 36 ] 



ABOVE THE SEA 

The hill is high in heaven, 
And here in the control 
Of vision shall be given 
The seas that shall unroll 
Till seas on skies are driven, — 

Till through the seas asunder 

Is the abysm cracked; 

And there the days go under, 

And there the cataract 

Of Ocean throws its thunder. 

And while the westward rivers 
Are winding to the sea, 
The dying day delivers 
Its ghost, which seems to be 
The dusk that cries and quivers. 

[ 37 ] 



Now is the saddest hour 
Of hours that still are sweet. 
Oh for my heart the power, 
The ways oh for my feet, 
To find its fatal flower! 

Though love grow even fonder 
Than love that lures and clings. 
Oh that I still may wander 
Home to the tears of things. 
And know the trouble yonder ! 



[ 38 ] 



NIGHT SONG 

Ah, love, it is all so dark in me 

That I fear and I feel alone, 

Like one who wanders along the sea 

And hears the surges moan ; 

When the moonless sea is a mystery 

He fears and he feels alone. 

Ah, love, will you look in the dark of me 

As though you understood 

The sea and the alien shore of the sea 

And the dark unentered wood ? 

Your eyes in a moonless mystery 

Make heavenly neighborhood ! 



[ 39 ] 



INTERIOR 

Oh to enclose thee, sweet, 
A lily in the room, 
Wherein a chosen gloom 
Shuts out in dim defeat 

The gold and crimson blent 
In the ecstatic songs 
Shrilled by the sunny throngs 
Of flowers too violent ! 

The fervent flute of June 
Deliriously blows 
The crimson of the rose 
And the high note of noon. 

The windows have a veil 
That lets the summer fall 
More mutely musical 
Upon the cold and pale 

[ 40 ] 



Hush of the mastered keys 
Whereo'er thy fingers furl, 
O instrumental girl 
For human melodies ! 



[ 41 ] 



THE RETURN 

I LAY me under quiet skies to sleep 

And cease remembering the days that keep 

My heart awake with murmuring their old tales, 

Murmuring like a wind against the sails 

That seek the sea and are blown always home. 

Haply, I said, these memories may roam 

At last and all go sailing down the sea, 

If for an hour of sleep I cease to be. 

But there were voices in the open sky 

Singing so far away they seemed to die. 

The voice of distance and a singing cloud 

Too far above the tree-tops to be loud ; 

And still they sang and kept my heart awake 

Because of their untroubled beauty's sake. 

So it grew sweet to listen to old stories, 

And view around the sterile promontories 

The dreams that were too weak to cross the sea 

Drift back to their old haven helplessly. 

[ 42 ] 



VENUS OF MELOS 

Lo, I was weary, and I have rest in thee, 
For over the fawns of thine unhidden breast 
And solemn urgency of their long gaze. 
The veil and far seclusion of thy face 
Has fallen like a silence blessedly, 
And hushed their hunger and eternal quest. 



[ 43 ] 



AUTUMN WIND 

The birds drift over the autumnal sky 
Like frail and fallen leaves across a lawn. 
And the unmitigating winds have drawn 
Out of their chant a shivering shaken cry. 

The winds have wrecked the gleaming sails of day 
And they have made a sorrow of the air — 
Wild winds, that are as streaming as the hair 
Of girls that wait the drowned by the bay. 



[ 44 ] 



QUEST 

What was it that I shall not seek again, 
Vainly, in your pure eyes sought not in vain ? 

What was it, all the unsure summer through, 
I feverishly hoped to find in you ? 

And what, when in a new, pathetic wise. 
You left ajar the gateway of your eyes, 

And at the last endured that I should look 
Into your eyes and read as in a book, 

Unveiling in a tremulous distress 
The candor of your spirit's nakedness, 

What was it in your eyes that let me read 
Merely a woman's need of a man's need ? 



[ 45 ] 



Why did your own desiring make you seem 

No more the strange, strange woman of my dream? 

Ah ! what old disillusion turned to strike 
And show that you were human-sisterlike ? 



[ 46 ] 



CONFIDENCES 

Listening woman, conjuring, 
Out of the shadows of my heart, 
Out of the shelter of the wing 
Of shame itself that broods apart, 

The words that are as wounds, the dreams 
That are so quiet, being dead. 
What is this wistfulness that gleams 
When you have heard and I have said ? 

Because I looked upon your smile, 
I held my heart out in a word. 
Your smile grew sad a little while . . . 
Alas, I dreamed that you had heard ! 

And you, when you have listened so. 
And know the shrine that you may be. 
Where praying men may come and go. 
You weep, and almost feel for me. 

[ 47 ] 



MY LADY'S TOMB 

My lady in the darkened house 
Where all the dead go home to drowse 
Awoke, and could not understand 
The flowers that faded in her hand. 

My lady in the lonely bed 
Where she had never thought to wed 
Knew Death, and while her eyelids kept 
The look of sleep, she wept and wept. 

Above her eyes, a fountain sealed. 
With lips all thirsty Death hath kneeled. 
And he hath drunk from the dim pool 
That made her sorrows beautiful. 

And in the waning garden close 
Where many a lily and one red rose 
Were all the life that she would reap. 
Death like a lover falls asleep. 

C 48 ] 



WEARINESS 

I AM weary already of the years that are yet to be, 
The sad and stale prepared procession of years 
That flag with desperate hopes and a fever of fears 
The straight descent and the single certainty. 

I fear the invasion of days that, one by one. 
Stealthily over the wall of the leaguered night, 
Invade the city of sleep with a lance of light 
And a flood of flame and the torch of a surging sun. 

And when the flame and the flood pass over me, 
I shall feel too tired for the waking after death. 
I had rather sleep than draw the long, long breath 
Of the tired insomnia of eternity. 



[ 49 ] 



FOR A PICTURE BY LEONARDO DA VINCI 

Mary the virgin mother — see ! — 
Still like a child upon the knee 
Of Anne as virginal as she, 

The mother like a sister grown 
To her who of herself alone 
Covered a god with flesh and bone. 

Veiled in a smile that is not mirth, 
They dream of the vain virgin birth 
That is a miracle on earth. 

The smile of their secretive eyes 
Is with a subtle shame grown wise, 
The holy shame of Mysteries. 

And on their maiden mouths their smile 
Hides them as Eve hid, in the guile 
Of women who have loved awhile. 

[ 50 ] 



Though grace of God has lighted there 

The hidden haloes of their hair, 

And though they tend with wistful care 

The Son of God and still their own, 
They are as slaves whose dreams have flown 
From where they wait about the throne, 

As vestal slaves who dream again, 
In lands where they are alien. 
Of olden home and hearts of men. 



[ 51 ] 



SLUMBER SONG 

We are alone and guarded deep 
Among the silences of sleep, 
And morning muses still so far, 
It has not dimmed the morning star. 
Sleep and be happy, do not moan — 
We are alone. 

Sleep and be happy, do not break 
The twilight with your eyes awake ! 
Oh sleep, oh sleep, the dreadful day 
Is still so many hours away; 
And when you are awake you seem 
To lose a dream. 



[ 52 ] 



CHRYSEIS 

When came the priest thy father to recapture 
Thee, O thou sad and glad Chryseis, won 
And worn by Agamemnon and undone, 
What of thy rape and thine unwilling rapture 

Didst thou remember, pure and simple daughter. 
Seeing thy father with a golden treasure 
Still fail to free thee from the deadly pleasure 
And sail without thee home across the water ? 

Wert thou so lonely then that thou didst crave 
Oh any touch to make thee less alone. 
Till, when the Grecian hand unclasped thy zone, 
Almost did'st thou forget to be a slave ? 

And when thy father's god with myriad slaughter 
Ransomed thee at the last as if with gold. 
And Agamemnon's fingers loosed their hold 
Among thy tresses, O thou ravished daughter, 

[ 53 ] 



And when the Grecians sailed thee home again, 
Threading the islands toward thy native cape, 
No more a simple maid ! what of thy rape 
And thine unwilling helpless rapture then 

Didst thou remember, leaning on the mast 

That dipt into the winds Jike a god's oar ? 

Didst thou gaze backward toward the Trojan shore, 

Willing a little at the very last? 



[ 54 ] 



THE WILD ROSE 

Deep in the meadow where the roses hive 
Their joy of June I went to be made glad. 
They were not human but they were alive, 
And they were all the living that I had. 

The joyous roses in the meadow twine 
And of themselves they give abundantly. 
I plucked a rose, but it would not be mine, 
I breathed it, but I could not make it me. 

I tore the garment of my rose apart. 
Alas, when all the petals had been shed. 
Still made my rose a secret of its heart, 
And I have left it on the meadow dead. 



[ 55 3 



DURING MUSIC 

Slow with old pain 
Awake again, 
Her eyelids cling 
In opening 
Without surprise 
Pain-patient eyes. 
Her memory 
How like the sea, 
Whereunder, low. 
The afterglow 
Of day and night 
Sinks out of sight ! 
Ah, she knows not 
Her own dim thought, 
Nor of her passion 
Its first fierce fashion. 
Nor of the past 
Knows now at last 
The dawn above 
The flight of love. 

C 56 ] 



All things that were 
Are dim to her, 
The dead days rise 
With vacant eyes, 
So swift, so aching 
The woe awaking 
Wakens to swoon 
At this old tune. 



[ 57 ] 



SEAWARD 

I KNOW there is another strand 
Down where the sky is low as land, 
Out of whose dimness cometh soon 
The lowly rising of the moon. 
And her impassive bar of light 
Across the waters in the night 
Hath power to hold the surges under. 
When they rise up in foam and thunder. 
And when the moon is taken away. 
There is no light till early day, 
And nothing on the sea can hold 
The strength of waters mountain-rolled. 
No light along the hidden sea 
Husheth the waves continually. 



[ 58 ] 



NOCTURNE 

Stars in the silent boughs 
Wake while the robins drowse. 

After so long a winging 

What starts them now to singing? 

Of course it is a love, 
Which they are dreaming of. 

But song and stars and dreams 
Are lovelier than love seems. 

Dreams and the stars and song! 
Oh why does the world go wrong ? 



[ 59 ] 



THE GRAVE 

I WONDER if she grieves, in her dark grave 
Because she may not look through closed eyes 
When the mild moth wings of the morning wave 
And swarm the tranquil emptiness of skies ? 

I wonder if regret for the green earth 

Wakens her heart and tells her timid feet 

To grope back homeward through the gates of birth 

Where there 's a sun to make the shadow sweet ? 

Once on her grave the flowers were springing up, 
And they were bursting with the need to live ; 
And every flower had raised an empty cup 
Under the April sun, and sang: "O give! " 

And now they lift unto a sunless cloud 
Their cups still empty, and they still cry : " Give ! " 
And so may she be crying in her shroud. 
And so may she have still the need to live. 
[ 60 ] 



TIME'S LOSSES 

I 

Egyptian sands are restless like the sea! 
With winds of all the ages, wave on wave, 
Up heaven's stairs, the Pyramid, they rave . . . 
They drown that rival of eternity ! 
And Cleopatra beckoned Anthony 
To show her with a kiss if he were brave 
Five fathom underneath the climbing grave 
That riddles to the Sphinx unanswerably. 

Holier ashes in the sands are drowned 

Than Cleopatra's, fair but fainter fames 

Of queens that were no more than blooms of sound, 

The " Tragedies " of Alexandria's flames. 

In ashes are they dead ? Go tell the Sphinx 

That they in God are living when God thinks ! 



[ 61 ] 



TIME'S LOSSES 



II 



The golden pillars of the Parthenon 
Are all discrowned of the Pheidian frieze ; 
Statues of gods within the waves off Greece 
The Romans drowned, and then they voyaged on. 
Chryselephantine phantom of the dawn, 
Such is Athena now that no man sees ; 
And never in Melos more may Venus ease 
With her lost lovely arms her lovers gone. 

Earth the eternal lies upon the tomb 

Of men who made of her so great a mother. 

She waits ... of men alive she waits what other 

To make her spirit from her body bloom. 

Her maiden majesty and act of love. 

And the still unconceived dreams thereof? 



[ 62 ] 



ON A MACEDONIAN TOMB 

So soon, behold, they tired of this their House, 
Man and his woman even one in death. 
Which from the love of life left out of breath 
Their souls explored and makes it hard to rouse. 
They have released themselves and dare not drowse, 
Mistrustful, though the stealthy silence saith : 
" Unto the dead no new thing followeth. 
So slumber on beneath the cypress boughs." 

Yea, they have risen now and plumb the deep 

Of the god-haunted spaces of the skies, 

Nor trust the sad security of sleep. 

Nor rest the ageless watching of their eyes. 

Lest the abortion of the future leap 

Quick on them with the terror of surprise. 



[ 63 ] 



THE END OF THE STORY 

Sadly at midnight in the little room 

I close the book, and on the window pane 

I lean my forehead, till I hear again 

Time — that is disenchanted now — resume 

Its death-watch like a sentry in the gloom ; 

And in my soul I hear the Grecian main 

Ebbing its music from a tidal plain 

That now becomes a waste without one bloom. 

I close the book, and from imagined flight 
I sink into myself. Good night, good night, 
If night were not so long ! See how the moon 
Is lagging in the arms of yonder tree ! 
The night is stagnant ! Ah, but see how soon 
Out of those arms the moon is rising free ! 



[ 64 ] 



AT PARTING 

Hush and give over : have no other thought 
Than to be silent now ! Ah, cease to urge 
Her to return ; for on the sunset verge 
Of her own lone horizon she has caught 
The wings of her own spirit sought and sought. 
Call her no more ; lest, if she should emerge 
Shoreward a moment, she should feel the surge 
Breaking again upon the life forgot. 

I would, instead, that I might go with her ! 
Yea, this instead, because she is so young 
And may be troubled when the shadows stir 
And have no knowledge of her way among 
The nights that must be lonelier than they were. 
When to my hand she tremulously clung. 



[ 65 ] 



THE SLEEPING BEAUTY 

She sleeps . . . and shall she yet awake ? She lies 

So very quiet on her narrow bed. 

The lace about her throat, the lilies spread 

Upon her bosom neither fall nor rise, 

Nor pale beneath the pallor of the skies 

Veiled by the darkened windows; candles shed 

The light that only falls about the dead. 

When they are burned what dawn shall touch her eyes ? 

Princess of Slumber for a Hundred Years, 

Before you fell asleep you dried your tears, 

Hearing a Prince should come for your awaking. 

And gladly closed your eyes to wait for him ! 

So if he leave your eyes forever dim, 

Grieve not — you shall not know your old mistaking ! 



[ 66 ] 



"MUSIC TO HEAR" 

A LITTLE longer let thy fingers fall 
Upon the keys. Oh cease, oh cease not yet ! 
But still, oh very gently, touch and fret 
The sleep of an enchanted madrigal ! 
Fret and awake, call and caress and call. 
And give not over calling, weep and wet 
Thy song with all thy tears, till it forget 
The silence that shall be the end of all. 

Give over now at last, and let it be ! 
Waken no song that sleeps. Touch not a key. 
But let thine hands in mine be quiet. Lo ! 
Above that halcyon brooding on the seas 
Which was thy voice, the tidal silences 
Float with the drowned life of long ago ! 



[ 67 ] 



FOR A PICTURE OF A SAINT 

She was a girl who waited on the Lord, 

And years becalmed were hers that she might pray, 

For He had pleasure in the simple way 

She spake, and when before the Throne she poured 

The patience of her gaze she made accord 

With all the viols that in Heaven play. 

And from the hymn on high the Will would stray 

Earthward to her for some enchanted word. 

Fountains were like the service of her thought, 
And on her soul, forsooth, her senses fell 
Like April rains at night that waken not. 
But if she ever loved I cannot tell. 
Or if the soul that has to Heaven been caught 
Had dared to tarry with a soul in Hell. 



[ 68 ] 



TO ONE WHOSE LOVE WAS SERVICE 

She never would have had a parting grieve 
The two or three who gathered in her name, 
Nor for the spent self-sacrificial flame 
Of all her days spared she at all to sheave 
The tired late hours left in the field at eve, 
The hours ungleaned, but offered still the same 
That presence unto which our prayers made 

claim . . . 
And so we dreamed that she would not take leave. 

But on a night that was without a moon 

Or even a star to light her long last way, 

She moved her lips that we might come and kneel 

Beside her ; and we know not then how soon 

She laid her lips upon us for her seal ; 

But when we rose it was another day. 



[ 69 ] 



A FACE 

Susceptible as silence to a song, 
Or lakes to winds, or night to slow sunrise, 
Or dreamers sleeping where the moonlight lies 
On meadows, to the moon's evasions long. 
These are the eyes the days departed throng 
With memories like clouds upon the skies, 
Till out of weariness remembrance dies. 
And hope, and nothing now is right or wrong. 

Yet as the weary may outsleep the dawn 
And waken in the doubtful evening light. 
Thinking it still is dawn and not the night. 
So she would think, — if only Love would tell ! — 
That still her golden hours have not all gone 
The shadowy way that leads from Heaven to Hell. 



[ 70 ] 



THE PIETA OF MICHEL ANGELO 

Look now how broken and how spent he lies, 

Even like an arrow shattered in a tree, 

Or like a messenger of victory 

Who to his home so races that he dies. 

In death dead-tired, he seems to agonise 

Now for the rest he takes upon the knee 

Of her who knows how restful death must be, 

Bowing with pitilessly peaceful eyes. 

He knew the virtue had gone out of him, 
Once, in the years accomplished, to console 
A sickened woman ; now from every limb 
The crucified extortion of his soul 
Drains until limbs are shrunk and eyes are dim 
Virtue enough to make a sick world whole. 



[ 71 ] 



ATALANTA 

I THINK that Atalanta turned her face 
Backward along the course and saw the man, 
Desperately defeated as he ran, 
Throw down a golden apple upon a place 
Where she must pass again and win the race. 
She scanned his eyes — what care had she to scan 
The shame of gold that was to break her ban 
Of girlhood ? — and she faltered in her pace. 

Oh then she feared the fear to be a bride. 

And feared the wind that had laid bare her thigh ; 

She burned to blushes, but she paused and bowed 

Above the apple till he passed her by; 

She hid her burning in his dusty cloud 

And heard the trailing laughter of his pride ! 



[ 72 ] 



IN THE HOME OF LIFE 

As though to-morrow were the mortal morn, 

The unpermitted portal in the hall 

Where I have turned the golden keys of all 

Those other portals wide and overworn 

With passionate quest and hope not all forlorn, 

Death seems so near to me that I might call 

And by mine own intrusion disenthrall 

The secret that he keeps behind his bourne. 

Scarce would I say God grants for God grants death; 

Yet granting death to me in time to come, 

God grant my spirit be not wholly numb. 

Nor so distracted by a strangling breath 

That then should be eclipsed by the pain 

The love that after all was all life's gain. 



[ 73 ] 



WHEN I AM OLD 

When I am old and weary of the world. 
And ready for the solitary change 
That after all adventure shall be strange — 
When after revolutions that have hurled 
The crowns of noon into the ocean swirled 
Round my Helena and its haunted grange 
I shall beside the window sit and range 
Lost kingdoms with a dream of banners furled, 

Be with me then ... or if you have to be 
Upon your errand to Eternity, 
Oh keep not hidden in the skyey blue; 
But turn at every star, half lingeringly. 
And drop a quiet flower of memory. 
That I may know the way to follow you. 



[ 74 ] 



THE NIGHTINGALES 

Still in Boccaccio's book the nightingales, 
As in the ancient night of Florence, cool 
With stars that made the silence purposeful. 
Gleam in the silence with the starry tales 
Boccaccio told of lust that wore love's veils. 
Pure songs, they charm the claws of Time that pull 
Love's veils away and show the withered skull 
Hidden where the face flushes not now nor pales. 

Oh for what face outlived that once was hers, 
Hers who is living now and here asleep, 
Call ye among the dead, proud wakeners ? 
Oh call no more, or she will wake and weep ! 
She wanders now by broken sepulchres. 
She has an other tryst than mine to keep. 



[ 75 ] 



THE POET 

Just listen to the poet's dream — 
Of life he wants to live the whole ! 
So starving, that to feed his soul, 
Poor fellow, he must make things seem ! 



[ 76 ] 



THE MASTERPIECE 

I THINK ere any early poet awed 
Men with a haunted image of Mankind, 
They buried in a grave gone out of mind 
The supreme poet who imagined God. 



[ 11 ] 



YOUTH 

I AM as one born blind. God, let me see ! 
Thou hast enchanted me in a strange land, 
So sweet, that I forget the mystery 
Of thine unseen, insinuating Hand. 



[ 78 ] 



TIME IN A GARDEN 

The daffodils have held one golden day 
For seven days and nights ; their day is done. 
Their requiem, 'tis the iris misty and gray. 
Which holds the hour of twilight in the sun. 



[ 79 ] 



THE RHONE AT AVIGNON 

Under the towers the currents of the Rhone 
Endure the deep division of an isle, 
Proud from the first embrace to wait alone 
Their marriage through the seaward Afterwhile. 



[ 80 ] 



ON A CERTAIN IRREGULARITY 

Put out the World — I want to sleep awhile ! 
I know about her beauties very well. 
When I am tired of her Platonic smile, 
She breaks the Law to work a Miracle ! 



[ 8i ] 



TO A DESERTED LITTER OF PUPPIES 

New-born, and so precariously new, 
Blind in a milkless world, and shivering. 
The very puppies for a moment knew 
That the life-eiFort is the fatal thing. 



[ 82 ] 



TO A GOADED SHEEP 

If it had known the journey's end, the dunce, 
Limping along, the mimic of its pain, 
It might have known there was n't much to gain 
It might have rested, and been killed at once. 



[ 83 ] 



A FRANCISCAN 

His tonsure like a branded aureole, 
His naked feet, the rope that round him ties 
The sack that cloisters him — can these control 
The truant dreaming of his prisoned eyes ? 



[ 84 ] 



TRIBUTE 

Some few, within a still, religious haunt, 
Pay unto God the tribute of their praise ; 
But others have to pay in other ways — 
They suffer, God, if that is what you want. 



[ 85 ] 



OUT OF DOORS 

I HEAR the wings, the winds, the river pass, 
And toss the fretful book upon the grass. 
Poor book, it could not cure my soul of aught • 
It has itself the old disease of thought. 



[ 86 ] 



ABOUT AN ALLEGORY 

It was the earth that Dante trod 
When he trod Hell, it was the earth, 
Itself sufficient for the hearth 
That warms the hands of a cold God. 



[ 87 ] 



TRISTAN AND ISEULT OF THE WHITE 
HANDS 

A FRAGMENT 

Tristan 
Boy, art thou waking ? 

Iseult 

Nay, he sleeps, but I 
Have wakened all night through, dear lord. 

Tristan 

What news ? 

Iseult 
The dawn hath broke the east. There hath no more 
Than dawn and gradual stars come over-sea, 
And the long moon since last I gave thee word. 



[ 88 ] 



Tristan 
Then will I watch by day as thou by night. 
Till that lone ship shall follow stars and moon 
Up to the empty circle of the heavens, 
And rise on wings of white and bring my love, 
Or rise on raven wings and bring her not. 
And tell me with its wings to live or die. 
Lift me a little in my bed, Iseult, 
Lift me, and let me look upon the light. 

Iseult 
Yea, Tristan, rest thine eyes upon the sky 
And the untroubled presence of the sea. 
And rest upon my breast thy fallen head. 

Tristan 
Thine arms are all about me as of old. 
Where have we fallen apart, Iseult, that thus 
Thine arms are all about me as of old 
And thy loose hair entangles me, and still 
I am as far from thee as hell from heaven ? 



[ 89 3 



Iseult 
Ask me not that, nor ask it of thyself, 
Lest thou shouldst understand too well at last 
How flowers of loveliness may fade for love. 
Perchance I waked for thee too long, and faded ! 

Tristan 
Wert thou awake indeed ? 

Iseult 

Yea, lord, indeed. 

Tristan 
Would I had called thee then. I lay alone, 
Walled in by midnight darkness, and the waves 
Rolled out their rhythms on the empty sands 
And set the chambers murmuring like a shell. 
Then was I haunted by a ghost of fear . . . 
The seas are very perilous by nighty 
And love is little when the seas are wide : 
Perchance Iseult of Cornwall will not come ! 
I might have called thee when I trembled then, 

[ 90 ] 



And felt thee throbbing by me, breath by breath, 
A living creature in that deadly darkness. 

Iseult 
The midnight darkness walled us in together. 
The surges rolled their rhythms on the shore, 
The chambers murmured dumbly like a shell. 
And I was haunted by a ghost like thine. 
I have no gift of comfort any more 
To bring thee quiet breathing in the night. 
For all my magic is nothing more than love. 
And all my love is turned from me aside 
While from my breast thou gazest to the sea. 

Tristan 
My wound is master of my words, Iseult. 
I am too weary with my wound to say 
How I love not, how love, how now my life 
Lingers a little only till my love 
From all her sailing sinks her anchor here. 
Thee have I loved indeed. So for that love. 
So for that love that I have not remembered, 
Oh help me live until the sails come home ! 
Be not afraid, I should not leave thee then, 

[ 91 ] 



Not though a friend had need and called, not though 
Another love than thine were calling at last 
Should I arise and leave for love or battle. 
But all my heart hath only this desire, 
That the warm woman flower of overseas 
Iseult of Cornwall hear my call and come, 
Crossing the seas, and hide me in her hair, 
And hold me in her fragrance till I die. 



TRANSLATIONS 



SONNET 

FROM RONSARD 

I WANT to read the Iliad in three days, 

So, Corydon, turn tight the lock on me. 

If any one disturbs me, verily. 

Thou shalt find out how much mine anger weighs. 

I only want to come and make my bed 
Our chambermaid, thy mate, and never thee ; 
I want to live three days in privacy. 
Then to make merry for a week ahead. 

But should somebody from Cassandra come. 
Open the door and let him enter straight. 
Hurry into my room, and help me dress. 

For him alone I want to be at home. 
Otherwise, though a god for me express 
From heaven, shut the door and let him wait. 



E 95 ] 



SONNET 

FROM DU BELLAY 

Happy is he who like Ulysses travels far, 
Or like the one who made the conquest of the Fleece, 
And then returns, laden with lore and memories, 
To pass the remnant of his life where kindred are ! 

Alas, when shall I see again the smoke upglide 
Above my little town, and in what time of year 
See once again the garden of my home austere. 
Which is for me a province, and so much beside ? 

Pleases me more the mansion that my fathers knew 
Than the facades of Roman courts spectacular : 
Pleases me more than mighty marble the slate fine. 
Than the Italian Tiber more the Gallic Loire, 
And more my little Lyre than Mount Palatine, 
And more than ocean wind the softness of Anjou. 



[ 96 ] 



UPON A DEAD WOMAN 

FROM DE MUSSET 

Beautiful was she, if the Night 
Which sleeps where Michel Angelo 
Has made her bed the shrine twilight, 
Without a motion may be so. 

She was a saint, if 't is enough, 
Passing, to give with open palms. 
So God sees not nor speaks thereof; 
If, without pity, gold makes alms. 

Thoughtful she was, if the vain tone 
Of a sweet voice and subtly wrought. 
Just like a stream that maketh moan. 
May make one have belief in thought. 

She prayed, if two resplendent eyes. 
Upon the earth a moment staying, 
A moment lifted to the skies. 
May properly be called a praying. 

[ 97 ] 



She would have smiled, if ever a flower 
That is not in full blossom yet 
Could be burst open by the power 
Of winds that pass it and forget. 

She would have wept, if hand of hers, 
Laid on her heart in this cold way. 
Could once have felt in all her years 
The dew of heaven in human clay. 

She would have loved, save that her pride. 
Like to the lamp unserviceable 
Illumined at the coffin's side. 
By her hard heart stood sentinel. 

She 's dead, and never lived at all. 
She looks as though she were not dead. 
Out of her hands she has let fall 
The book that she has never read. 



[ 98 ] 



MEDITATION 

FROM BAUDELAIRE 

Be patient, O my Grief, and quiet down. 
You call for Evening; it descends; 't is here; 
An atmosphere obscure enfolds the town, 
Bringing to some repose, to others fear. 
Now, while the human hordes without renown, 
Under the lash of Pleasure, doomsman drear. 
Gather remorse in fetes of slave and clown. 
My Grief, hold out your hand to me ; draw near, 
Afar from them. See how the Years deceased 
Bow from the skies in robes of by-gone styles ; 
Out of the water springs Regret and smiles ; 
Beneath an arch is drowsed the dying sun, 
And drawn like a long coffin toward the East, 
Hear, love, the coming Night, the gentle one. 



[99] 



COMPLAINT OF LORD PIERROT 

FROM JULES LAFORGUE 

She that must put me wise about the Feminine ! 
We '11 tell her firstly, with my air least impolite : 
" The angles of a triangle, O sweetheart mine, 
Are equal to two right." 

And if this cry escape her : " God, how I love thee ! " 
— " God will reward his own." Or if she wince and cry 
" My keys have heart, thou shalt be all my melody ! " 
" All 's relative," say I. 

With all her eyes then, knowing that she is too trite : 
" Alas, thou lov' st me not; others are jealous, too ! " 
And I, who with one eye at the Unconscious sight : 
" Thanks, not so bad ; and you ? " 

[ io° ] 



" Let 's play that we are true ! " — " O Nature, for what 

profit ? 
For each who loses someone wins ! " Then lines like these : 
" Thou 'It be the first to weary, I am certain of it. . . . " 
. — " After you, if you please." 

At last if she shall die some evening, fugitive 

Among my books; feigning to be incredulous, 

I'll mutter: "Well now, but — we had the Means to Live! 

So it was serious ? " 



[ »oi ] 



CONCEITS 

FROM JULES LAFORGUE 

Ah ! the Moon, the Moon obsesses me . , 
Do you think there is a remedy ? 

Dead ? But may she not be merely numb, 
Drunken with the cosmic opium ? 

O rose-window with thine efflorescence 
Tomb-like in the Temple of Quiescence, 

Thou persistest in thine attitude, 
While I stifle with my lonely mood. 

Yes, oh yes, thy breast is fashioned fair ; 
But, if never I may suckle there ? . . . 

Oh, to-morrow night, and such allusion 
Will go off a-laughing in confusion, 

[ I02 ] 



Finding in my platonism fine 
Raptures of an angler at his line. 

Queen of Lilies, hail ! Your Majesty, 

I would pierce thee with the moths of me ! 

I would kiss thy patine, widowed 
Charger of Saint John the Baptist's head 1 

I would find a song to touch thee so. 
Thou would'st voyage to the mouth below. 

But there are no other rhymes for Moon — ah, 
What a most regrettable lacuna ! 



[ »o3 ] 



SEA WIND 

FROM MALLARME 

The flesh is sad, alas, and all the books are read. 
Flight, flight out there ! The birds, I know, are ravished 
To be amid the unknown foam and in the skies ! 
Nothing, not olden gardens mirrored in the eyes 
Can hold at home this heart that plunges in the sea, 

nights, nor yet my candle's lonely clarity 

On the blank page whose whiteness keeps it undefiled. 
Nor the young wife who suckles at her breast her child. 

1 will depart. O steamer with thy masts asway, 
Lift anchor now for an exotic Far-away. 

An ennui, desolate with hopes that turned to griefs, 
Is trusting still the last good-bye of handkerchiefs ! 
And it may be these masts, which to the tempests beck, 
Are even of those a wind may bend above a wreck 
Lost, with no masts, no masts nor isles exuberant . . . 
But hearken, O my heart, unto the sailors' chant ! 

Note: The first line is Arthur Symons'' . 

C 104 ] 



WHAT SILK IN SCENTS 

FROM MALLARME 

What silk in scents of centuries 
Where the Chimera is subdued 
Is worth the shape and native nude 
That you outside your mirror ease ? 

The wounds of banners eloquent 
Exalt along the thoroughfare : 
But I — I have your naked hair 
For covering my eyes content. 

Ah no ! the mouth may not be sure 

To taste of that which makes it fond, 

Till he, your princely paramour. 

Extinguish, like a diamond. 

In the considerable tangles 

The cry of Glories that he strangles. 



[ 105 ] 



MUSETTE 

FROM MURGER 

Seeing a swallow yesterday 
Bringing the year into its prime, 
I was reminded of the fay 
Who loved me when she had the time ; 
And even till the night drew near 
In revery I bowed above 
The almanack of that old year 
When she and I were so in love. 

Ah, no, my youth is not dead yet. 

Not dead my memory of you ! 

If at my door you knocked, Musette, 

My heart would open and draw you through. 

Because your name still makes it beat, 

O Muse of infidelity. 

Come back that we again may eat 

The blessed bread of gaiety. 

[ ^°6 ] 



The things about our little room, 
The olden friends of our amour, 
Just in the hope that you may come 
Put on again a gay allure. 
Come, you will see them all, my lass, 
Mourning because you left them there. 
The little bed and the big glass. 
From which you often drank my share. 

You should put on your white array, 
Exactly as of yore you should. 
And as of yore the Sabbath day 
We 'd go to run about the wood ; 
And in a bower at evening 
We 'd drink again that vintage light 
Wherein your song would dip a wing 
Before it soared into the night. 

Musette, who at the last had learned 
The carnival had sunk to rest. 
Upon a pleasant morn returned. 
Migrating bird, to the old nest ; 
But even in kissing the coquette. 
No longer did my heart beat high, 

[ i°7 ] 



And she, who is no more Musette, 
Said that I was no longer I. 

Adieu, now go your ways, my dear. 
Dead with the love that is no more ; 
Our youth is in its sepulchre 
Beneath the almanack of yore. 
'T is only now by digging through 
The dust of days that in it lies 
A memory may find anew 
The key of the lost paradise. 



[. io8 ] 



AFTER THREE YEARS 

FROM VERLAINE 

When I had pushed the narrow gate that hung ajar, 
I made my way into the little garden close, 
Whereover quietly the morning sunshine glows, 
Jeweling every blossom with a watery star. 

Nothing has changed. I see it all : the unpretending 
Bower with the vine grown wild and wicker chairs around. 
Always the jet of water makes its silver sound, 
And the old aspen tree its threnody unending. 

The roses as of yore are throbbing ; as of yore 
The great proud lilies in the breeze are bending o'er. 
I recollect each lark that in and out is sailing. 

Even the Velleda, I find, is standing yet, 

Down at the alley's end, with all its plaster scaling, 

— Thin, in the sickening perfume of the mignonette. 



[ ^°9 ] 



NEVERMORE 

FROM VERLAINE 

Memory, Memory, what would'st thou have ? The fall 

Has put the thrush to flight across the fatal air. 

The while the sun is darting a monotonous glare 

On yellowing woods that thunder with a northern squall. 

We were alone and in a dream we walked away, 

Just she and I together, with hair and thought blown free. 

Suddenly uttered, with her thrilling gaze on me. 

Her voice of living gold : "What was thy happiest day? " — 

Fresh and angelical, her ringing voice and sweet ! 
I let her have her answer in a smile discreet, 
And pressed a kiss on her white hand, devotedly. 

Ah, the first flowers of all, how good they are to smell ! 
And sounds with what a murmur of felicity 
The " yes " that is the first from lips adorable. 



[ "o ] 



MY FAMILIAR DREAM 

FROM VERLAINE 

Often I have a vision strange and close 
Of an Unknown I love and who loves me, 
And who is never the same, nor utterly 
Another, and me she loves and me she knows. 

She knows me, and my heart, alas, that clears 
For her alone, is not a problem now 
For her alone, and my pale sweating brow 
Can she alone of all refresh, in tears. 

Is she blonde, auburn, dark ? I cannot say. 
Her name ? I know that it is soft and splendid. 
As of the loves that Life has driven away. 

Her gaze is as the gaze of statuary. 

And she has in her voice, grave, distant, airy. 

The cadence of dear voices that have ended. 



LANGUOR 

FROM VERLAINE 

I AM the Empire at the end of the Decline, 
Who watch the marching of the tall barbarians white, 
The while I am composing some acrostics slight, 
All in the golden style adance with tired sunshine. 

My soul is sick at heart with an ennui supine. 
Far off they tell of many a long and bloody fight. 
O lack of power, being so weak for vows so light, 
O lack of will to use awhile this life of mine ! 

O lack of will, O lack of power to die awhile ! 
Ah, all is drunk ! Bathyllus, wilt thou always smile ? 
Ah, all is drunk, all eaten ! There 's no more to say ! 

Only, a bit of verse too trivial that you burn, 

Only, a slave neglecting you a bit to stray. 

Only, an ennui, who knows what, that makes you mourn ! 



[ 112 ] 



OH HEAVY, HEAVY WAS MY MIND 

FROM VERLAINE 

Oh heavy, heavy v^^as my mind, 
Because, because of vi^omankind. 

I never could be comforted. 

Far off although my heart had fled. 

Although my mind, although my heart 
Far from the woman kept apart. 

I never could be comforted. 

Far ofF although my heart had fled. 

My heart, my heart in very ruth 
Said to my mind : " Is it the truth. 

Is it the truth — or has it been — 
This exile proud, this exile keen ? " 

[ "3 ] 



My mind said to my heart : " Do I 
Myself make out this mystery 

Of exiles who remain at home, 
However far away they roam ? " 



[ "4 ] 



CYDALISES 

FROM GERARD DE NERVAL 

Where are our mistresses ? 
They are within the tomb ! 
They have more happiness 
Within a lovelier home ! 

They with the seraphim 
Are deep in the blue sky, 
And with their praises hymn 
The mother of the Most High ! 

O virgin in first flower, 
O snow-white bride to be. 
Love-woman for an hour, 
To fade in misery. 

Eternity profound 

Was smiling in your eyes ! 

Lights that the world has drowned. 

Rekindle in the skies ! 

[ ^15 ] 



DELPHICA 

FROM GERARD DE NERVAL 

Daphne, do you remember this old strain, 
Under the sycamore or laurel white, 
Or olives, myrtles, or blown willows light. 
This song of love . . . that always starts again ? 

Do you remember the great columned fane. 
The bitter citrons that you still would bite. 
The cavern, death to many a wreckless wight, 
Where sleep old offspring of the dragon slain ? 

They will return, these gods you weep always ! 
Time will bring back the reign of ancient days ; 
The earth has quivered with the breath immortal . . . 

And yet the sibyl of the Roman mien 

Sleeps still beneath the arch of Constantine : 

— And nothing has disturbed that haughty portal. 



[ "6 ] 



MIGNON'S SONG 

FROM GOETHE 

Knowest thou the country where the citrons bloom ? 

Gold oranges light up the leafy gloom, 

Indolent wind is in the azure skies, 

The myrtle still and high the laurel rise. 

Dost thou remember ? Thither, thither, 

I would. Beloved, we might go together. 

Knowest thou the mansion with the columned walls ? 
The laughter of the light is in its halls, 
And marble statues stand and gaze at me: 
"Unhappy child, what have they done to thee ?" 
Dost thou remember ? Thither, thither, 
I would, my saviour, we might go together. 



[ "7 ] 



Knowest thou the mountain and its cloudy tryst? 
The mule seeks out the way amid the mist, 
The dragon's ancient brood is in the cave, 
Plunges the clifF, and over it the wave. 
Dost thou remember ? Thither, thither 
Our way ! O Father, let us go together ! 



[ "8 ] 



SONG 

FROM HEINE 

He was an olden monarch, 
Hoary of hair, his heart had died. 
The lonely olden monarch 
Married a maiden bride. 

He was a page in Maytime, 
Yellow his hair, glad was his mien. 
He bore the silken trailing 
Train of the maiden queen. 

Knowest thou the olden ditty. 
So full of sweet, so full of woe ? 
They had to die together, 
They loved each other so. 



[ "9 ] 



TO ZANTE 

FROM UGO FOSCOLO 

Ne'er shall I reach again the shores divine 

Where was delivered my body young, 

O Zante, who dost in the surges shine 

Of the Greek sea, from which was Venus sprung 

Virgin, and filled those isles with flower and vine 

At her first smile, whence is there still a tongue 

For thy clear clouds and all those boughs of thine 

In the immortal verse of him who sung 

The fatal waters and the exile strange. 

From which, made fair with fame and bitter change, 

Ulysses kissed his rocky Ithaca. 

Thou of thy son shalt have the song alone, 

O mother land of mine : the fates withdraw 

From us the grave that thou might'st weep upon. 



[ »2o ] 



ON THE DEATH OF A BROTHER 

FROM UGO FOSCOLO 

Some day, if I go not forever flying 
From people to people, thou shalt see me come 
Upon thy grave, O thou my brother, sighing 
Of thy so gentle years the fallen bloom. 
Our mother, now alone to her night nighing. 
Speaks about me unto thine ashes dumb j 
But with wild hands to reach you I am trying. 
And lonely from afar salute my home. 
I know the hostile Fates and unconfessed 
Cares that were in thy life tempestuously, 
And at thy portal pray I too for rest. 
This out of so much hope to-day is left ! 
O strangers, yield at least the bones of me 
Unto the bosom of the mother reft. 



CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS 
U . S . A 



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